For Emma Chamberlain, it all started with her Canon camera. Or at least, that’s what she said in an advertisement in a 2023 partnership with Canon USA. Although she said it in a sponsored TikTok, it’s undeniably true.
Her early YouTube videos — recorded on Canon point-and-shoot cameras — in San Francisco showcased her becoming, lifestyle and interests in fashion and coffee. She documented her all-girls high school experience, car trips with her father and relocation to Los Angeles in 2018 as a 17-year-old.
As she filmed and edited her videos, her audience clasped to her sharp jump cuts and relatability in humor. She knew her humor was a breath of fresh air for a homogenous internet landscape. With time, viewership grew and solidified her prominence in social media. Chamberlain and other viral creators’ videos from the 2018 era were what many of my peers consider to be the peak of YouTube. We simply couldn’t get enough.
She has since slowed her vlogging, or “video logging,” tendencies and is the co-founder of Chamberlain Coffee and host of podcast Anything Goes. Because of this, young consumers have reverberated her online footprint. Specifically on TikTok and Instagram, users have romanticized their digital cameras, just like Chamberlain has for years. I, like many, have fallen to believe this.
Specifically, one model is at the epicenter of the internet fad, the Canon PowerShot G7 X. The G7 X has been praised for its specs, compact design and images that are often distinguished from smartphone pictures. To understand its full capability, you likely need intermediate camera knowledge, which many online seem to not have (and neither do I).
It can both build the perfect social media feed and establish someone as a member of an in-group, largely the “it girl/it boy” aesthetic. This image usually promotes fashion, popularity, traditional social appeal and larger societal expectations. However, there’s another image to this trendy camera that’s more concerning. I see the G7 X as a marker of overconsumption, or an emblem of the internet’s tendency to purchase goods in excessive quantities. These goods are often sold not only for their logistics and their intended use, but with the influencer image catalyzing most to shell out hundreds of dollars.
Today, influencers and other online users who endorse the G7 X often promote dozens, or even hundreds, of goods in other videos. Some of these goods are sold with the same image: to curate one’s social media feed and seemingly perfect off screen life.
One of the main reinforcing factors in this market is TikTok Shop, a feature on the app that permits stores and business accounts to sell products in the app rather than on traditional websites or retail apps, like Amazon or Target. If a user explores the “Shop” feature, they will find a haze of discounts, viral snacks and sketchy deals on name-brand goods. The algorithm pushes these products as needed in videos, too. Because popular influencers can earn commission from TikTok Shop, it seems that TikTok has contributed the greatest to the greater overconsumption culture.
Cheaper digital cameras are sold on TikTok Shop, but the push and desire for digital cameras remains a pricey, symbolic torch used to illuminate our understanding of social image. We all want to look better, but is it coming with a price even greater than hundreds of dollars: our reliance on materialism and excessive consumerism?
Because of these images fostered by the greater online community, the G7 X market has grown exponentially. In 2020, the G7 X was priced at $500 and found on the shelves of nearly every camera store and major retailer. Now, it’s nearly $800 and sold out. Other point-and-shoot cameras, like the Canon PowerShot SX740 HS and Sony RX100 are also sold out.
Redmond (Reddy) Bernhold is a junior studying biochemistry and journalism. He originally hails from Minster, Ohio but calls Siegfried Hall his home on campus. When not writing, he explores South Bend coffee shops and thrift stores. You can contact Reddy at rbernho2@nd.edu.
